A new trend on Youtube - Reading the books by JRR Tolkien

There is no better thing then reading out loud from the books of JRR Tolkien. Who does not enjoy reading or listening Riddles in the Dark from The Hobbit? That is one of my favorite scenes to read - whenever I'm asked to read out loud for a crowd. I love to do the voices and while I have not yet seen a video posted of any of such readings at youtube, I believe most like to listen to it.

Next to reading my favorite Tolkien chapters or poems for friends at Tolkien meetings, gatherings, lectures and festivals, I also very much enjoy to read The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings to my kids. When they where little I just read The Silmarillion in English and because we mainly speak Dutch at home this only had the effect they went to sleep fast - and I kept on reading...

It seems since a week a new trend has started on YouTube to read Tolkien books, since in one week alone several video clips have been posted where people read a part of Tolkien's work. Some pick up The Hobbit and read it - guess we will see more of those video clips being posted as the Hobbit Movie comes closers. Other share with us their favorite parts and try to do their best to read it as nice as possible and others takes us with them to their Tolkien meetings.

Somehow I hope this is a trend that keeps growing, since there is no better way to share your love for Tolkien then by reading to others. Here I will post some YouTube videos that I noticed during the last week.

Tami Reads The Hobbit

Tami Snow is a writer of Young Adult, Middle Grade Fiction and Children’s Literature. She grew up in Tucson, Arizona with three sisters and a brother—who is presently serving his fourth tour of duty in the Middle East. She was raised by a Theologian father and Celtic mother. She resides in Las Vegas, Nevada with her husband and three children.

She reads for us the first chapter of The Hobbit, the very first novel she read, and reads in the nice illustrated editions of The Hobbit by Michael Hague.

Reading at Mootstock

Mootstock is a 5-day retreat for a group fans of Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings books, who met online and have become real life friends over the past 15 years. This is a very short clip of some Mooters reading from Tolkien's books.

This is a very nice way to read Tolkien of course... passing along the book, sharing one common love and passion,... I'm hoping more clips will be posted on YouTube. Especially looking forward to other languages. It would be very great to have a long list of youtube clips by people from all over the globe reading Tolkien in their own language. Let us pick a chapter or a section and start this, why not?!

Goldberrythebrave reads The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late

Goldberrythebrave loves to read on YouTube, even reading whole chapters from books. This week however she decided to read for us a poem by J.R.R. Tolkien: "The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late".The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late is the imagined original ditty that is dericed to 'our time' in the simplified nursery rhyme "Hey Diddle Diddle". The supposedly original was invented (by back formation) by J.R.R. Tolkien. The title of this version is given in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.

Part of Tolkien's brilliance in establishing the epic mood is his ability to introduce a version of a familiar saying and give the reader a sense of hearing the old proverb afresh, as if spoken for the first time, in the heat of the moment.

Goldberrythebrave also reads The Adventures of Tom Bombadil

In this video goldberrythebrave is reading a part from The Tolkien Reader, which is an anthology of works by J.R.R. Tolkien. It features a variety of short stories and some non-fiction by Tolkien. Here is being read from The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, namely chapter one which carries the same name as the book.

Also here we can here all about Goldberry, Tom Bombadil's wife, and most probably the origin of goldberrythebrave's nickname. That is probably why she wanted to read this particular chapter this week.

Come, derry-dol, merry-dol, my darling! This was a lovely reading and hope more will follow!

The Hobbit on Tolkien Reading Day

Just to finish this small overview I go back one year where I asked Jason Sadler from iwearyourshirt.com to read from The Hobbit to celebrate Tolkien Reading Day. It was probably one of the earliest video clips on YouTube of someone actually reading from The Hobbit (even while it are just small parts). Now it seems to have become a trend and we can only hope this small post about it will only make it bigger.

Spread your love for Tolkien, read it out loud wherever you can and if you really feel like it, why don't you also post it to YouTube!? We will keep watching!